Content Hubs Part 2: Revenge of the Weak Content

As a West Coast resident, there’s no shortage of local breweries to choose from. If stouts and IPAs are your thing, you’re very lucky, because there is seemingly no end in site to the craft beer craze. Brew pubs are everywhere, including online. They want you to like their pale ale on Facebook and post a pic of their growler on Instagram. Many of these businesses rely almost entirely on social media for promotion. It’a a fun approach, but it’s not the right approach for all businesses.

When it comes to websites, audience engagement is the new frontier. In my opinion, 80% of the companies I see out there are doing it ineffectively. Am I saying all social sites have it wrong? Not at all. Many businesses do very well with a platform that is strictly social. The social approach is a great way to establish a new brand and build an audience. Just like those popular brew pubs, every business strives to generate a major buzz. Pun intended.

However, after all is said and tweeted, businesses still need to meet customer expectations, otherwise your social efforts run the risk of feeling like that dreaded hangover once the party is done. Business is all about increasing revenues; and this is something a content hub with a solid content strategy supports. A website can’t sustain itself on surface-level content alone.

After all, you wouldn’t want to invite your friends over for a party and keep them in the foyer all night. You don’t want to create false expectations.

It’s like the Rickroll bait and switch. Have you ever tried to look up something of interest only to discover a video of Rick Astley singing Never Gonna Give You Up? It’s a little disappointing to say the least. As a business, you can’t afford to disappoint your audience. If you do, bounce rates will soar.

I once had a client using an optimized AdWords campaign to draw traffic to their website. Unfortunately for them, this didn’t help their conversions. Analytics proved people were not engaged by what they saw and quickly left. In an effort to help, we focussed on deepening the quality of their content. Ultimately, visitors ended up spending more time and clicking more pages. We created an interface that welcomed guests and invited a conversation. Within five months, bounce rates were reduced by half. Unfortunately, a legacy of weak content can take time to rectify.

The social element is a tasty appetizer, but consumers demand a main course. Strong content does more than satiate your visitors appetite; it attracts the right kind of visitor in the first place, and that’s crucial. Traffic is good; relevant traffic is better. Convincing visitors of your expertise and value is more important than celebrating your brand in photos and tweets when it comes to driving revenue; and isn’t that what your business is all about?

Whether you sell craft beer or auto parts, whatever your business, I’d like to hear your story. Visit my company’s website to learn more about how we work.